Segredo de Família

I like Robert Duvall. He has made some great films over the years - A Civil Action, The Apostle, Tender Mercies, The Great Santini, Apocalypse Now and the Godfather, to name a few. Even his small films are great, like Assassination Tango.

This film, co-written by Billy Bob Thornton, is a gem that shines in a sea of excellence. The discovery that his real mother was black, was a shock to Earl Pilcher Jr. (Duvall), and he heads off from Arkansas to Chicago to find his brother Ray, played by James Earl Jones, another great actor known by most people as Darth Vader.

Ray already knows everything and is not anxious to revive old memories. The interaction between the two is mesmerizing and funny. It is what movies are all about.

Irma P. Hall (The Ladykillers, A Lesson Before Dying) is captivating as Aunt T. and has some of the best lines in the film. It is worth your time just to see her.

What a memorable experience!

Irma P. Hall should have won the Oscar for this performance. I can't believe she wasn't even nominated. Duvall and Jones were also wonderful. An actor's treat!

What a pleasant surprise this was. I caught this one day on Showtime and really didn't give it much of a chance. But I was so wrong!! Powerful performance by Irma P. Hall (as Aunt T.), and Robert Duvall is at his best as well. Wonderfully acted and written, this has to be the best movie I have seen in a long while. Sure, the same old southern stereotypes are portrayed as well as the same for the inner-city black culture, with many being quite accurate. Some parts were a little over the top, like the birthday party in the bar that Earl crashes as a total stranger. But that being said, not a lot of negatives I can say about this movie.

This is a movie that reminds one of the saying: "Just when I thought I knew the answers, they changed the questions." A Caucasian man discovers late in life that his mother was actually Black, instead of the White woman who raised him. The history of slavery in the US, and the American version of apartheid in the south that followed the Civil War until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and given the often "strained" relations that exist today; the subject matter is important and challenging. The result is that "A Family Thing" is a little gem. It speaks of bigotry, fear, the way things were and the way things are. Some White Americans will not be comfortable with this movie. This will be due to the bigoted nature of Mr. Duvall's character, metaphoric of White hatred towards Blacks. Then, his world crumbles when he discovers when all is not what it seems. Kudos to the producers(of whom Mr. Duvall was one) and the cast for a superb lesson in confronting hate, and how one special Aunt can heal wounds generations old.

A moving portrayal of the problems of racism - from both sides. The central characters a portrayed with incredible depth. Aunt T (Irma P. Hall) sums up the futility of racism - the films central theme - with the line "being blind does not give me the opportunity to judge a person by their color" (paraphrased). That being said, the film gets it's message across without preaching. An excellent film.